Tuesday, May 09, 2017

That was a pretty good day. I got the car insured, in
the nick of time -- our previous insurer
has decided to stop insuring private cars. My husband continues to mend.

And I knit forward with the Polliwog. Mary Lou (comment
yesterday) has pointed me to a couple of errata, one of which I had figured out
for myself. It’s going to be a jolly little sweater.

When I was first married, I blush to remember, I knit
a “matinee jacket” (remember them?) for our niece, my husband’s sister’s
daughter, for her first Christmas. She will have been six months old, so I
thought she qualified as a “baby” – at that point, I hadn’t even met her. But
even in 1957, young ladies of six months didn’t wear matinee jackets, however well-knit. My poor sister-in-law was hard put to find language to thank
me. The Polliwog is going to be a different story altogether.

I have been thinking about the future. It deserves one
of those decision-cartoons which occasionally turn up in the press. I think I
can maintain two major WIPs at once, from this list:

Alexander’s Fair Isle vest. Calculations remain to be
done.

“Nancy’s vest” from Carol Sunday, using the Blacker “Samite”
yarn I bought at the EYF. You may remember that I chose a nice dusty red which
turned to brown in my hands as soon as the ink was dry on the cheque (so to
speak). (Andrea was there too and bought a lovely old-gold shade.) But brown is not entirely inappropriate for
Nancy’s vest.

A yoke sweater. If so, which?

--Kate
Davies’ “Miss Rachel’s Yoke”. I’ve got it; all I have to do is knit it.

Something
using the yarn I bought from the Ginger Twist studio last year, combined with
one (or more) of my packs of gradient yarns. The possibilities here are

o– Kate Davies “Port Charlotte” pattern
from her new “Inspired by Islay book.

o– the cover pattern from the “Heart on my Sleeve”
e-booklet I bought recently to support work against malaria.

o– why do I need a pattern? Knit an EPS
yoke and put the gradient yarns in as stripes.

my children born in 1986 and 1987 both had several matinee jackets, complete with matching knitted knickers. oh me. oh my. Knitted by fond Aunts. I only knitted two garments for them; a baby surprise jacket from a Sunday magazine, and a delish poncho with great cables on it.

It seems as though you are well on the way with the concept of the Fair Isle vest, so that should be paired with something simpler. I'm not a bobble fan, so Port Charlotte doesn't get my vote. Are the gradients fingering weight? I've looked a set I have and thought about a yoked sweater with stripes as well. Great minds.